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He scrubs toilets and flips hamburgers. When luck strikes, he gets paid $50 to be CT-scanned or x-rayed at a teaching hospital.

But most of all, Richard Wang is a father. His dizzying schedule and patchwork of low-paid work are stitched together for a single mission: to be the best dad possible to his 8-year-old son.

“I want to make sure that Noah’s development, especially emotionally, is OK. Whatever he needs, I provide it,” says Wang.

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It’s not easy. Like a growing number of Canadians, Wang is stuck in the kind of precarious work that grants him few rights, no benefits, and little control over his life.

Wang arrived in Canada 10 years ago as a middle-class married man: a trained interpreter who had also lectured in fine art history. After a brief stint in Winnipeg, his family moved to the 320 Dixon Rd. tower blocks in Toronto — an environment so stressful that his wife left him to join her sister in Calgary.

He has raised Noah as a single parent ever since. He was told temporary work was the easiest way to get on the job ladder. But a decade later, he is still on the bottom rung.

On an average day, Wang will drop off his son at a before-school program in Rexdale at 7 a.m. Then he sets about picking up as much work as possible through the four temp agencies he is signed up with. Usually he can land three or four one-hour shifts as a cleaner or personal support worker. But his commute is often as long as the shifts themselves. Recently, he wrote a letter of complaint to one employer.

On an average day, Richard Wang will drop off his son at a before-school program in Rexdale at 7 a.m. Then he sets about picking up as much work as possible through the four temp agencies he is signed up with. (Marta Iwanek)

“I said, ‘I cannot afford staying on this job. I give you my full availability from 7 till 6. You give me three hours and you cancel one shift, or suddenly you ask if I’m available when I’m on another job’… It makes you stressed for your family.”

According to a 2008 Statistics Canada report on child poverty, family situation and lack of employment “most influenced children’s vulnerability to low income.”

Yet experts are warning that getting parents into work won’t always solve the problem. Statistics show that one in three low-income children already have at least one parent working — suggesting that the type of work parents find is also important to lifting kids out poverty.

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“We think there is a really strong and profound connection between (job) security, a characteristic of your employment, and your ability to have a good family wealth,” says Michelynn Laflèche, director of research at the United Way.

But in today’s labour market, security is increasingly rare.

When the federal government pledged to eradicate child poverty in 1989, 13 percent of the country was in precarious work. By 2007, that figure had ballooned to almost 21 per cent. Between 2009 and 2012, the number of Canadians in temporary jobs grew at three times the pace of permanent employment. And in the GTA, precarious work has increased by almost 50 per cent over the past two decades.

The impact of insecurity is widely felt: Laflèche’s research into precarious work in the GTA shows that even middle-income families in temporary jobs have greater difficulty making ends meet than low-income families with secure jobs.

So could the rise of precarious work usher in an era of intergenerational poverty?

“That’s what the research suggests to us,” says Laflèche. “And I think that’s a fair suggestion and a fair interpretation of what the research is saying.”

“If you can’t invest your time into other aspects of your kids’ lives, particularly their schooling life, because you’re time-poor, or you’re tied to that phone waiting for a call to come in to work, your children are really going to miss out. They’re missing the opportunity to build social capital and social networks that they need in their lives,” she adds.

A quarter of low- and middle-income families in insecure work report difficulty accessing childcare, compared with under 15 per cent of those with stable jobs. (Marta Iwanek)

In addition to robbing parents of precious family time, precarious jobs are more likely to pay the minimum wage, or just above it.

And according to a new Canadian Labour Congress report to be released at the end of this month, the minimum wage in Canada hasn’t been high enough to lift individuals above the poverty line since the late 1970s.

“If you’re a single person in most cities in Canada, you’re going to be below the poverty line earning minimum wage,” says the CLC’s senior economist Angella MacEwan. “So if you have a family, you’re definitely below the poverty line.”

Benefits and transfers like the Child Tax Credit can make a significant difference for low-income parents, says MacEwan. But they do not dull the strain of erratic shifts and constant uncertainty associated with precarious work.

“It’s sort of, really, lack of control and choice over their work,” says Deena Ladd of the Worker’s Action Centre. “(Workers) could have a couple of weeks of no work and then all of a sudden it’s: Boom — they’ve got work and they’re scrambling to find care.”

In the Toronto area, those in precarious jobs are less likely to have a partner in full-time employment — possibly because unknowable schedules make arranging child care difficult and expensive. A quarter of low- and middle-income families in insecure work report difficulty accessing childcare, compared with under 15 per cent of those with stable jobs.

For Wang, before- and after-school care is indispensible, extending his window for taking shifts by a few vital hours each day. He is currently scrambling to put together letters from his many employers to prove eligibility for subsidized childcare. He says he worries about pressing them, fearing they will see him as a liability or a trouble-maker.

But amid the uncertainty, there have been small successes: moving from Dixon to a bachelor apartment in what he feels is a safer neighbourhood. Buying a guitar for Noah, who Wang hopes has an artistic bent.

On a recent outing to Varsity Stadium, where the duo took in a free soccer match, Wang pointed out the surrounding landmarks: the Royal Conservatory of Music and the University of Toronto.

“I dream for you to come here, the ivory tower,” he told his son. “To be one of them. After graduating, you can get a good job. A stable job.”

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